Serena Williams is a boss on the tennis court, but when it comes to her relationship with Alexis Ohanian , she brought in her squad to vet him. Williams, 42, recalled during the latest episode of her ESPN+ docuseries, In the Arena , that she brought her agent, Jill Smoller , and her then-assistant on her first date with Ohanian, 41, back in 2015. “It was, like, two hours of interrogation and questions,” Ohanian remembered.
“Do I have kids? Am I married?” (Williams and Ohanian met in May 2015 while staying at the same hotel in Rome.) The Reddit cofounder said, “Nothing was off limits,” during the nerve-wracking dinner. “Serena, her assistant, her agent and then me on the other side of the table and they just bombarded me with questions,” Ohanian recalled.
Smoller, 59, had a similar account of the first date, telling the cameras, “I totally tried to get the book on him right away.” Williams was totally on board with her agent grilling her now-husband . “Jill asked him straight up like, ‘What’s up with your girlfriend?’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t have a girlfriend,’” Williams recalled.
“Then he said that he had broken up with her. It changed things when he said that because I was like, ‘OK, now he’s not being this beast,” the 23-time Grand Slam winner said with a laugh. Williams and Ohanian showed their initial text exchange when he asked to take her out for dinner during the docuseries.
“OK, but I’m gonna bring my agent and my assi.